Sound Design in Music Production in the Digital Age

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to provide a theoretical substantiation of sound design as a component of music production in the digital age and to determine its artistic, aesthetic, socio-professional, and cultural functions under the conditions of digital production, platform-based music circulation, and the transformation of professional roles in studio practice. The research methodology is based on the combination of cultural, art-historical, sociological, and analytical approaches. The method of theoretical generalization is used to clarify the concept of sound design within the system of music production; the comparative method is applied to correlate international and Ukrainian studies of digital music production; structural and functional analysis is used to reveal the relationship between sound design, sound engineering, mixing, mastering, and music programming; elements of the sociology of professions are employed to characterise the transformation of the division of labour among the producer, composer, performer, beatmaker, and sound engineer. The scientific novelty consists in interpreting sound design not as an auxiliary technical operation of post-production, but as a purposeful organisation of the sonic identity of a musical work, which includes the selection, creation, transformation, timbral and textural ordering, and spatial-dynamic modelling of sound material. The article substantiates that digital audio workstations, sample libraries, plugins, streaming platforms, and generative artificial intelligence tools change the criteria of professional competence, the forms of collective creative labour, and the modes of audience reception of a musical product. Conclusions. In the digital age, sound design performs an integrative function in music production because it connects the artistic intention, studio technology, social organisation of labour, and platform-based functioning of the phonogram. For the Ukrainian professional environment, particular importance is attached to the conceptual differentiation of sound design from related types of music-production activity, the clarification of educational competencies, and the development of criteria for analysing sonic form, authorship, and quality in contemporary music culture.